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Forums - General Chat - If you still like VHS

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If I ever feel a pang of nostalgia for VHS and want to recreate the experience of watching a film on the format, I can always borrow my Gran's glasses, coat them in vaseline and watch a regular DVD or BD like that. Not forgetting of course to mask off half the picture down each side and tit about with the tracking control throughout.

While VHS was an essential part of the late 80's and early 90's for anyone interested in films, I grew to hate the format. I got into Laserdisc around 1994 and from that point on I couldn't wait for VHS to die it's death.

thejflo wrote: I still use VHS blank tapes for recording things (excuse me if I just can't deal with the complexity of TiVo, I'm a little slow). If it still works, why break it? I still use VHS like yourself to record off the TV - everything still works. I will upgrade when the video player finally dies and even then I may just use the laptop and a USB DVB stick...

I can think of a very good reason not to completely abandon VHS. Filmmaking for beginners. You can buy a really nice professional grade S-VHS camcorder with full manual controls for between $100 and $400. Quality-wise, it's not worth the investment. However, you aren't going to get those type of manual controls on a digital camcorder in that price range. Any "manual" controls you'll get will be electronic menu based, making it impossible to do on-the-fly adjustments.

So unless you have shove out $2000 for an XL-2 (they were still around that price range last time I checked) VHS is actually a pretty good way to get started learning the basics. Then by the time you can afford a good digital camcorder, you'll already know the basics.

Robert Rodrigez shot tons of movies on an old VHS camcorder when he was a kid, that's how he got started. Perfect way to learn.